Quiet cricket schedule to hit Indian advertising revenues

A quieter Indian cricket schedule could lead to advertising revenues for the country’s sports broadcasters being reduced by about Rs3 billion (€46 million/$61 million) in 2012, according to the IndianTelevision website.

Sports broadcasters sold Rs20 billion of advertising in 2011, with the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament contributing Rs9 billion and the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup, which was won by India on home soil, bringing in Rs4 billion.

Analysts believe the lack of a one-day international (ODI) competition, such as the World Cup, and India’s recent poor form will have an adverse impact on advertising income.

“The ODI World Cup is a miss this year,” Sejal Shah, executive vice president of Vivaki Exchange, the media-buying unit of French marketing group Publicis, said. He said that some of the advertising revenue lost from sport would move to other programme genres with similar sized and male-skewed audiences.